


The Moments In Between

by ellebeedarling



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Budding Romance, Explicit Language, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Death and Violence, One-Shots, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, TRK spoilers, contemplating feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-04-06 22:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14067399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellebeedarling/pseuds/ellebeedarling
Summary: Ronan had known, even before he’d broken down and talked to his mother in Cabeswater about it, that what he felt for Adam was that budding and beautiful thing that caused poets to write songs and sonnets, that caused Niall Lynch to bring his dream woman to life. Despite his losses, despite every hurt and horror that Ronan clutched at like a man drowning, his life was still abundant with love in many forms. It was more comforting than he could put into words. And Ronan was gone - drunk on it. Drunk on these friendships that had become as important to him as family. Drunk on Adam Parrish and his dusty hair and slender fingers, his homely yet elegant face and southern twang.**A collection of one-shots chronicling the moments between chapters or events in The Raven Cycle books - missing scenes, if you will. A brief synopsis of each story will appear in the chapter summary.  All stories set during and after The Raven King, and thus contains spoilers.





	1. The Difference Between Wanting and Having

**Author's Note:**

> The moments between....
> 
> Ronan's and Adam's kiss on the front porch and their meeting in the field the next morning.

Ronan and Adam sprawled on the couch, the pads of Adams fingers tracing the black lines of Ronan’s tattoo where it peeked out of the edges of his tank top. Ronan swallowed. So many nights he dreamt of this very thing. Adam’s lips against his own. Adams rough fingertips on his skin. Adam’s taste on his tongue. Adam’s breath mingled with his. 

 

“C--can you…. I want to see your tattoo,” Adam said, surprising a frown out of Ronan.

 

“My tattoo?”

 

Adam’s cheeks burned adorably pink. Ronan brushed his lips against them, tasting their sweet, hot flavor. It melted on his tongue, pulling a groan from deep inside his chest. Adam sucked in a sharp breath then let it all back out in a jumble of words, “I want to touch it… you.” 

 

Ronan sat up suddenly, upending the boy hovering precariously over him. Adam almost hit the floor before both their scrambling saved him, and they laughed - that same sparkling, daring, joyous laugh that Ronan had been perfecting all night. It settled into Adam’s guts and bones, knitting together the fragmented pieces of his soul - places he’d thought damaged beyond repair. 

 

A soft, adoring smile sat prettily on Ronan’s wicked lips, and the pair of them hummed with the bubbly happiness of the entire night, resting their foreheads together for a few moments before Ronan whispered. “You can touch it.” Leaning back, he shucked easily out of his shirt then maneuvered them both so that Ronan was facing away, shoulders hunched slightly, presenting his back and the impressive artwork to Adam. 

 

His fingers began slowly, tentative, feathery sweeps and stripes that painted the picture in Ronan’s mind anew. The more Adam traced, the bolder his touch became until he was drawing the lines with the edge of a fingernail, the echo of the needle’s burn blazing across Ronan’s back. He shivered and shuddered with every touch. His breathing grew shallow, his dick hard, and he squeezed his eyes shut to stave off this new rush of emotions, so thrilling and overwhelming.

 

Adam’s finger curled around his shoulder, following the spidery lines to their hooked end, and Ronan grasped Adam’s hand in his own, bringing those deliciously slender fingers to his lips just as he’d dreamed a thousand times before. It was better, so much better. Adam’s skin was richer, warmer, rougher that Ronan had imagined. The faint scent of moss and mist spilled from his fingers, filling Ronan with a sense of warmth and peace that was as calming as it was unnerving.

 

It seemed utterly impossible that this was happening, here and now. He felt dreamy, floating through some miasma that obscured his thoughts and chained his words. For a brief, terror-inducing moment, Ronan felt certain that he was dreaming, but then Adam’s lips were pressed to the back of his neck, burning away the gauzy haze that had burdened Ronan’s mind and bringing him back to the searing reality that this was really and truly happening.

 

Ronan turned, capturing Adam’s lips with his own, drawing the other boy closer with a hand around the back of his neck, fingers sure of what they wanted and unsure if they were going about it properly all at the same time. Ronan’s strength was in his bravado. He knew it - hell, everyone around him knew it. But here there was no room for his games, and he knew that, too. Adam was not a thing to be played with or to be owned. Adam was a treasure to be worshiped. Ronan had been doing it from afar for so long, now, that there was a certain amount of incredulity about the entire situation. 

 

Adam pulled back, panting for breath that seemed too thin and oxygenless to be of any use to either of them. Bringing their foreheads together again, he sighed, a light sound full of hope and want, then again with a sound of resignation. 

 

Ronan felt his heart hammering out an unsure rhythm. Kissing Adam in his room had been a gamble, all his cards on the table, the darkest depths of his heart laid bare, and it had seemed to pay off. But the leap from friends to lovers was unexplored territory for Ronan. Despite the yearning he felt in every place that mattered, his brain was singing with relief that Adam wanted to slow things down, to make the adjustment in increments. 

 

He rooted forward until he was pressing a soft, chaste kiss to his friend’s lips then leaned back, letting his fingers linger on Adam’s face for a breath longer before dropping his hands into his lap. Adam settled beside him, a stupid grin curling the edges of his mouth. Ronan was nearly overcome with the urge to taste that smile too, but he refrained.

 

“You could stay,” he mumbled, running a hand over his buzzed scalp and trying to recall what it had felt like to be in control of his body. “In Declan’s room,” he added so that Adam wouldn’t think his only intention was to jump him. Ronan Lynch was a lot of things, but he’d never force something like this. “Or Matthew’s.” The thought drifted away from him. In the back of his mind, he considered how Declan’s room was next door to his own. Nothing but a wall separating them. But he couldn’t bring himself to point this out to Adam. 

 

“That’d be nice,” Adam said, his exhaustion and euphoria making it difficult to keep his vowels in check. Ronan grinned, appreciating the way he’d dragged out the word  _ nice _ to make it almost two syllables long. He wondered if he could get away with kissing him one last time. 

 

The room suddenly rang with the improbable sound of hooves crashing across the floor, and both boys looked up, startled and somewhat abashed, to find the Orphan Girl blinking at them owlishly. It seemed a bizarre twist of fate that they should have to worry about getting caught making out on the couch by a hoof-footed little girl that Ronan had dreamt into existence. 

 

All at once, Ronan seemed to remember that he was half naked and scrambled to pull his shirt back on. Adam hid a snicker behind his hand, blue eyes sparkling with mischief when they met Ronan’s, and this time, Ronan didn’t bother trying to curb the urge to kiss the other boy again. It was a tender, lingering thing that coiled and smoldered in both their chests until they were dizzy with want and lack of air once again. 

 

Orphan Girl was closer when they broke apart, studying them quizzically, canting her head from side to side. She touched her lips with her own finger, then pressed the same finger to Ronan’s lips. He rolled his eyes. “No kisses for you, you little scamp,” he said, all bark and no bite. 

 

“Kerah?” she asked. 

 

“We’re going to bed,” he told her. She glanced at the stairs, then back at Ronan and grabbed his hand to haul him up off the couch. Ronan rolled his eyes as he headed toward the staircase. “Make yourself at home, Parrish,” he said, then directed Adam to where the bathroom and supplies were should he wish to shower. “There’s probably some clothes in Declan’s closet if you need something.” 

 

Adam thanked him and reclined back on the couch, tucking his hands behind his head. Ronan watched, stupefied, for a moment, eyes locked onto Adam’s body stretched out long and lean on his sofa. He swallowed, and Orphan Girl tugged at his arm again breaking the spell altogether. 

 

“Goodnight, Parrish.” 

 

“Goodnight, Lynch.” 

 

Ronan turned and bounded up the stairs, chasing and chastising the Orphan Girl. “You couldn’t have given me five more minutes, you viper?” Adam heard him complain with only the barest hint of his usual acidity. Orphan Girl said something in her strange language, but Adam couldn’t catch Ronan’s response. 

 

Adam lay on the couch listening as the sounds receded, listening for Ronan’s footsteps as he returned to his room, before making his own way up the stairs and into Declan’s room. He fell face first onto the bed, burying his face into the downy pillow and inhaling the scent of hickory smoke and boxwood that permeated every square foot of the Barns. A slow and strangely hopeful Irish tune filled the air. Adam didn’t know if it was something Ronan was playing in the adjacent room, or if he was already dreaming, but he fell asleep with a fire burning bright in his heart and an immovable smile on his lips. 

 

**

 

Ronan was yanked from his dream of dust-colored hair and cornflower-blue eyes, of rough fingers permanently stained with car grease and lips softer than the petals of a rose, by a flying girl with hooved feet. Orphan Girl landed on his bed with a yelp and a tremendous bounce that made her giggle and Ronan swear. 

 

“Go away,” he barked, pushing his face further into the pillow in hopes of recapturing the remnants of that dream. 

 

_ “Kerah!” _ she shouted, and Chainsaw echoed her from her perch. 

 

“How the fuck did I end up surrounded by all these damned demanding women?” he asked facetiously, then rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Sunlight shone through the leaves outside his window, casting verdant and dappled shadows onto his blanket and around the room. Ronan was mesmerized by the gentle sway of the breeze through the branches for a moment too long. The bed shifted and Ronan blinked. When he opened his eyes, he found a round pair of dark eyes set in a grubby face staring back at him. “I’m getting up,” he groused, shoving the girl roughly off of him. 

 

Orphan Girl bounced on the bed as he tried to sit up and search for the jeans he’d discarded before dropping into bed. He wanted to lay here and keep thinking of Adam, of Adam’s fingers on his skin and Adam’s lips on his lips, but he shook the fog away and got dressed. 

 

“Shut it,” he snapped when Orphan Girl began to giggle uncontrollably on the bed as she jumped higher and higher. 

 

Ronan snatched her out of the air mid jump and carried her down the stairs under his arm like a sack of flour. He knew Adam had Weights this morning, but he also knew that the man needed some goddamned sleep. If he wasn’t careful, Adam was going to run himself completely into the ground, and Ronan had no intention of watching that happen. 

 

After wolfing down a leftover burger, feeding two raw hot dogs to Chainsaw, and watching Orphan Girl eat a handful of napkins, Ronan pulled his boots on and headed out the back door. The sun was still rather low in the sky, not yet high or warm enough to burn away the fog that clung to the ground over the rolling hills of pastureland surrounding his childhood home. 

 

Ronan loved it here. Every aspect of this place was threaded into his bones. The fragrance of wet grass and boxwood filled him with renewed peace as he inhaled deeply, letting memories of happier times sink into his soul to sustain him for the trials he knew were ahead. Last night had been like some fairytale dream, but in the affable warmth of the awakening sun, doubt swooped in, eating holes in Ronan’s resolve. 

 

He tromped through the wet grass toward the barn that housed his father’s dreamt cattle. He’d always thought the Lynch’s had the most beautiful, extraordinary cows in Virginia. Now he knew why. He patted one of them on the head, scratching lightly behind her ears before heading into the office at the back of the barn. 

 

Orphan Girl skittered around him in excited circles until he growled at her to get lost and she scampered off into the fields of wildflowers behind the barn. He could hear her periodic squeals of delight and Chainsaw’s approving or castigating calls, letting him know whether or not his presence was needed to avert some catastrophe or other. Satisfied that Orphan Girl was safe under Chainsaw’s watchful gaze, he settled into the chair in his father’s - now his - office and opened the rusted desk drawer. A piercing squeak accompanied the motion, but Ronan ignored it, pulling out a journal that his father had kept.

 

It was nothing more than a ledger that kept track of when each cow had appeared, which ones were whole and capable of reproducing, which ones his father had made erroneously with some flaw or defect that made them suitable for little more than pets. To Ronan, they’d always been pets. Every single one of them. He pored over the scratchy scrawl of his father’s handwriting, stabbed down onto the paper with the same murderous intent that Ronan used in his own penmanship. He smiled faintly as his fingers slid over the paper, felt the ridges and bumps the pen had carved into its smooth surface. The smile and joy turned to ash in his mouth as an image of his father, skull and face caved in, blood and brains coating his jacket and the ground around the BMW, flashed into his mind. 

 

He closed the book with a snap and a hateful curse, ran his hands over his head in agitation. He’d been reading and rereading that journal for weeks now, hoping to find some hint or clue to aid him in waking the cows. He was as determined to find a solution to this as he’d ever been about anything in his life, but solutions eluded him. After weeks and weeks of thinking and dreaming, he was fresh out of ideas.  

 

Feeling restless with his failures and the growing cloud regarding Adam, who was still, presumably, sleeping in his brother’s room, he left the barn and strolled across the field toward the sunrise, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. If the temperature had increased, his body refused to register it. Instead, the dew clung to bare skin, chilling him to the bone, and his breath left his mouth in smoky wisps. Overhead, Chainsaw circled and cawed before darting off back toward the main house. In the distance, he could hear Orphan Girl’s delighted shrieks whenever she discovered something new.

 

With nothing but the sounds and smells of home surrounding him, Ronan could let himself relax - a rare treat. Outside the boundaries of this property, he always felt the need to keep his guard up - even at Monmouth. Since discovering his father’s body, there’d been this festering rage boiling and churning in his guts, pushing him to make irrational decisions - to fight and drink and race and all the other nasty things he’d become infamous for, things that drove Gansey and Blue, and even Adam, crazy from their desire to protect him or to simply be rid of him. 

 

His mind drifted back to a time when he and Adam had been closer to enemies than friends, certainly closer to that than lovers, and he wondered when, exactly, that had changed for Adam. Had Adam kissed him out of simple lust? Or pity? Had he been hoping to push for more? If so, what had held him back? Reluctance? A return of reason? 

As much as Ronan had dreamt of a night like the previous one, he didn’t  _ do _ casual. Nothing he  _ ever did _ was casual - much less relationships and sex. Adam probably understood that about him, but there was too much on the line for him to risk anything on assumptions. It seemed like too much to hope that Adam felt something more for him than friendship or lust. Where Adam was quiet, Ronan was deafening. Where Adam was smooth, Ronan was sharp and cutting. Adam was subtle; Ronan was about as subtle as a stampede. All these things he easily recognized, and yet he couldn’t help but want.

 

Love was a strange and curious thing. Ronan had been cocooned in it his entire life until one day he wasn’t. The sight of it stretched out on the ground and smeared in blood, of it sitting silent and unmoving for weeks on end, had left him hollow where he’d once been full. He’d attempted to satiate that empty place with adrenaline and recklessness, with beer and selfish hatred, and all he’d managed to do was come away feeling emptier than ever as he’d tried to reconcile his father’s death, his mother’s silence, his brother’s betrayal with the rich, meaningful life he’d known before. 

 

He’d let anger rule him, dictating his words and choices, because it was easier than feeling. And somehow, he still managed to love and be loved in return. He saw it in the way Gansey worried over him, the way Noah catered to him, the way Blue stood her ground against him because she was just as fearless and devoted as he was. He felt it when Adam hadn’t hesitated to help him with Greenmantle, because he was furious on Ronan’s behalf. It was even there in the way that Adam held his gaze when it was just the two of them and time stopped moving even if they were standing in the middle of a crowded hallway. 

 

Not simple lust then. Ronan’s heart skipped.

 

Ronan had known, even before he’d broken down and talked to his mother in Cabeswater about it, that what he felt for Adam was that budding and beautiful thing that caused poets to write songs and sonnets, that caused Niall Lynch to bring his dream woman to life. Despite his losses, despite every hurt and horror that Ronan clutched at like a man drowning, his life was still abundant with love in many forms. It was more comforting than he could put into words. And Ronan was gone - drunk on it. Drunk on these friendships that had become as important to him as family. Drunk on Adam Parrish and his dusty hair and slender fingers, his homely yet elegant face and southern twang. 

 

Images and emotions raced through his mind like a train on a collision course. As much as Gansey had become the brother that he’d lost, as much as Blue had become the sister he’d never had, as much as Adam had become his dependable companion and confidant, one of those relationships had come to mean so much more to him than nearly anything else. He groaned softly with the very real, very physical pain he felt at the thought of losing that tenuous link to Adam. He wondered at the existence of a universe where the most beautiful emotion of all could cause such torment in that liminal space between wanting and having, between wishing and knowing.

 

Examining the events of the previous night in the cold light of the morning, the hard truth was that Ronan wasn’t sure how to proceed. The simplest course of action was to let Adam make the first move. As far as Ronan was concerned, he’d said everything he’d needed to say last night. Adam had seen the truth of Ronan’s feelings, naked and exposed. It was up to him what he chose to do with them, but the thought of Adam waking up to realize his mistakes, to tell Ronan that it had meant nothing to him, when it had meant  _ everything _ to Ronan, was too agonizing to contemplate. 

 

Ronan’s breath shuddered in his chest painfully as he drew these thoughts and feelings into himself. Though he had safe spaces to fall back to, he couldn’t stand the thought of being hurt again, of being let down by life yet one more time. For all his fierceness, Ronan could readily admit, to himself at least, that he was a fragile creature - cracked and ready to shatter at the least bit of prodding. So as he heard Chainsaw’s alert high above him and Orphan Girl’s squealing laughter, the crunch of grass underfoot announcing Adam’s presence, he bound the thoughts up - rolling his hopes for the future into a tight ball and hiding them away in the recesses of his mind until he knew it was safe to reveal them once more. 


	2. I'll Be Here When You Wake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan grieves for his mother's death. Adam doesn't know how to help him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mentions of death and violence, contemplating the inevitability of death.

Adam didn’t know what to say or do. Every phrase that he parsed inside his head came out sounding trite and insincere. Ronan’s mother was dead. Murdered in the very place he’d sent her to for protection. According to Gansey, the murder of Niall Lynch had altered Ronan so irrevocably there was hardly even a shadow left of the boy he’d been before. Now he’d seen both his parents carved open and lifeless before his very eyes. Even Adam, with his turbulent familial relationships, couldn’t bear the thought of seeing his own mother in the state they’d found Aurora Lynch. 

 

He sighed, remembering the near catatonic way that Ronan had sat in the driver’s seat of his BMW just waiting for someone to tell him where to go and what to do - how to avenge his mother’s death. Less than twenty four hours prior they’d been absorbed in one another, tasting and discovering a side of each other that Adam still felt unsure of. Since then, there had been no time to sort the tangled coil of emotions that tethered them together. Adam sensed that what had transpired between them was genuine, but he also knew that the connection was worried and frayed. Just like the ley line, the pathway between them needed to be cleared, the intermittent connections repaired, before they could come together again and decide what the future held for them. 

 

Ironic considering their link to magic and psychics and things unseen. 

 

But Ronan was grieving all over again, swallowed up in the pain of losing a second parent, of losing his mother a second time. Adam’s heart ached to reach for him, to soothe, to transport them both back to that magical night where everything felt fresh and new and hopeful. Where they knew they’d win and life would move forward on their own terms. Oh, they’d won, but the price had been high. So damned high. 

 

Gulping back the futile hope that he could simply wave a wand and make things as they were before, Adam sat on the edge of the couch next to Ronan, carefully. Ronan stared forward into the crackling fire of the living room hearth, elbows on his knees, chin on his fists. He was still wearing the suit he’d worn to the small, private ceremony they’d held at St. Agnes church. Only a handful had been in attendance - the three Lynch brothers, Gansey, Blue, and the family’s priest. Even Ashley, who was remarkably still dating Declan more than a year after she’d begun, was mysteriously absent. 

 

Adam had been there, but his role had been as friend, not… whatever he’d been hoping he and Ronan would become to each other. As a member of Gansey’s - and by proxy, Ronan’s - inner circle, Adam’s presence had been required - not that he minded having been there. There was something unique and incredibly touching about witnessing the pious formality of a Catholic funeral. Adam had felt privileged to be there even if he’d been powerless to offer any real comfort to his friend - his more-than-friend.  

 

Ronan’s tie was askew, not altogether different from how he wore it to school when Adam considered, but otherwise, he wore the uniform of a grieving son, complete with his trademark scowl and sinister eyes. The tracks of long-dried tears shimmered slightly in the fire’s glow, but Ronan’s countenance was a granite mask of fury and hate. Dancing flames cast his face in menacing shadows, and Adam was reminded of the vague fear he’d once held of Ronan. Over time, that fear had been replaced by something akin to outright dislike of the broody, Irish boy who knew how to wound with words just as much as with fists. Then, bizarrely, over the last year or so, that fear and dislike had shifted and morphed, skirting the borders of attraction and tumbling headlong into a feeling that he was neither sure of nor comfortable contemplating. 

 

They were alone in the house, save Chainsaw and the ghosts of the past. Declan and Matthew had cleared out the remainder of their belongings before heading back to DC, and Orphan Girl had made herself scarce. Adam wasn’t sure why. It could be that she, too, was grieving Aurora Lynch, but he wasn’t sure she’d been imbued with the capacity. She was a dream thing, after all. With nothing but the distant sound of tree frogs and cicadas and Chainsaw’s scritching at a few balls of paper on the floor, the atmosphere of the old farmhouse was eerie, beyond gloomy. 

 

“Are you hungry?” Adam ventured to ask, thinking of the fridge full of dishes - laden with bacon and butter, and in no way to be misconstrued as nourishing, Blue had warned them - prepared and delivered earlier from 300 Fox Way. Though, he easily predicted what Ronan’s answer would be.

 

“No.” 

 

They kept their silent vigil for several more tedious minutes before Adam tried, “Want to go change?” 

 

“No, Parrish. Fuck off!” 

 

Adam tried not to flinch at the vitriol in Ronan’s voice but was nearly undone by the magnitude of the task. Drawing a steadying breath, he muttered. “Mind if I make myself a cup of coffee?” 

 

He took Ronan’s silence as permission and slipped into the kitchen barely noticed by the flick of ice-blue eyes from the couch. Remembering his first trip to the Barns, Adam wandered aimlessly around the meticulous kitchen, cluttered and mismatched but immaculately clean, smelling of lemon floor polish. Ronan seemed driven by a compulsive desire to keep the place exactly as it had been when he’d lived here with his folks - a happier time, to be sure. Adam thought about the boy in the other room who’d been flung so violently into adulthood. They were not so dissimilar as Adam had once believed. While Ronan had had an idyllic childhood compared to Adam’s, he’d suffered enough in the last three years to make up for it. Ronan had lost everything then gained most of it back only to have it stripped from him yet again. It ought to have been too much for one young heart to bear. 

 

As his fingers ran idly back and forth between the chewed up butcher block and smooth, worn formica countertops, Adam remembered a silly dream he’d had as a child. Desperate to be rid of his cruel father and unfeeling mother, he’d imagined an entire fairy world where he could live in peace and opulence. Where he never needed to fear the sound of tires in the driveway or the creaking of the front door. It was his kingdom, his domain, and in it, he was untouchable. 

 

Niall Lynch had created a similar fantasyland here at the Barns. He’d plucked his desires straight out of his dreams and tucked them into this whimsical landscape where he’d believed they’d be safe. But his demons had chased him down and found him, attacking him at his most vulnerable. Here in his dream world where he’d believed himself untouchable, his enemies had come for him, and now his blood fed the grounds of his make believe castle, his wife and children left behind to deal with the fallout of Niall’s foolish choices. 

 

Adam thought about that, the grotesque irony of it all. Here where even Adam felt safe and at peace, far removed from his abusive father and any other concerns that plagued him. Here in this place of imaginary tranquility. Here where dreams became reality, no matter how absurd. Even here was unsafe. Even here tragedy happened. It was no more immune than the rest of the world turning in a vain and pathetic hope that misfortune would somehow pass them by, that they’d all win in the end, avoid pain, skirt heartbreak, cheat death. The inescapable reality that death would come for them all at some point beat down on Adam’s shoulders until he felt frightened and alone, uncomfortable in his own skin. 

 

Raising his head, he physically shook the morbid thoughts away. They’d keep for another day. 

 

It took him a few tries to find the canister of coffee, rummaging through first one cabinet and then another full of fanciful items that seemed rather useless, nestled amongst cups and plates and bowls that had obviously been pilfered from Niall’s or perhaps even Ronan’s imaginations. He brewed enough coffee for two, then filled two innocuous-looking mugs and carried them to the living room. 

 

Ronan was a statue on the sofa, exactly as Adam had left him, save the streaks of fresh tears trickling down the salt paths already laid down across his cheeks. Adam set the cup on the table before him, and the other boy didn’t so much as glance at it. Wordlessly, Adam sat and leaned back against the sofa, blowing a cool stream of air across the surface of his cup so as not to burn himself. He thought about the photo he’d seen in an upstairs bedroom. Niall Lynch, so wild and fierce, just like his middle son; Aurora Lynch, so wild and happy, just like her youngest son. He remembered her as she’d been in Cabeswater, so clean and golden, like warm sunshine after a gentle rain. She’d been angelic, and it was easy to see why all four of the Lynch men had been devoted to her. 

 

He chanced a glance at Ronan and found his eyes closed, eyelashes, damp with the remnants of his grief, resting atop his high cheekbones. It looked as though he were praying, but the steady inhale-exhale of breath told Adam he’d drifted to sleep. He had no idea what kind of dreams Ronan would conjure up after everything that had transpired. He didn’t even know if Ronan had slept at all in the last four days. It seemed outrageous that their quest was at an end. Years of searching culminating in a spectacular series of events that had left them all more than just disappointed. If Adam felt heartsick over Glendower’s fate, how much more so did Ronan and Gansey feel. It had been personal to them all in their own specific ways, but it was over - no more quest, no more king. The magic that had been simmering inside Adam’s bones since he’d sacrificed himself to Cabeswater was still present, but now it was reduced to a background hum of some far-off and peculiar energy rather than the raging river it had been before. But they were, all of them, changed. Gansey had died; Blue had killed him. Ronan had almost died; Adam had almost killed him. Yet miraculously they were all still here, if not yet quite whole. 

 

Adam set his mug beside Ronan’s untouched one and stood to remove his jacket and tie. From a cedar chest behind the sofa, he pulled out two afghans which could have been knitted by Aurora Lynch’s loving hands or could have been pulled from Niall Lynch’s dreams as a gift to his adoring bride. Either way, they were heavy and colorful and exquisite, tinged with the misty scent he’d come to associate with things Ronan felt deeply about - Cabeswater, Aurora Lynch, Adam’s hand cream. Returning to the couch, he wrapped one around Ronan’s shoulders, then sat, pulling the other boy over until his head rested in Adam’s lap. Ronan woke, of course, no one was that sound a sleeper, but he didn’t fight it. Adam heard his shaky sigh and commenced running soothing fingers over the short bristle of hair on Ronan’s head. He traced the shell of Ronan’s ear, fingers sweeping over his temple and across his forehead before returning to their starting point and taking the track again. 

 

Eventually they both fell asleep. Adam’s dreams were blissfully mundane, and even Ronan managed to sleep until the sun’s dusky rays spilled over them the next morning. The fire on the hearth had gone out during the night, and the chill in the room was brisk and uncomfortable. Ronan shifted, finally shedding his coat and tie, unbuttoning the top three buttons of his dress shirt. He leaned back against the couch with Adam, digging the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, possibly to rub away the grit of sorrow coupled with a decent night’s sleep. More likely, it was to erase the vivid and bloody images in his mind. 

 

Both boys yawned and stretched, both acutely aware of the proximity of the other’s body. Finally Ronan settled, shifting again until his head was on Adam’s shoulder. Adam reached down to lace their fingers together, then dared to brush a kiss against the top of Ronan’s head. He felt his companion tense momentarily, but he soon relaxed again, giving Adam’s fingers an almost imperceptible squeeze. 

 

“Thanks for staying,” Ronan muttered gruffly.

 

“Anytime.” 

 


	3. No Going Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan informs Adam that he's not going back to school. Adam understands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short little update. Sorry for seemingly abandoning this. My life has been an absolute circus lately, and not in a fun way. I still have two more parts of this written, and at least 2 more I want to write. Hopefully, the updates won't take quite so long next time. :)

“I’m not going back.” 

 

Adam looks up from his French text, words dancing and swimming across the page. Latin had not been his strong suit, but French is even worse. He has to work three times as hard to make sense of it. Ronan had offered to dream him up a translation box, but Adam was pretty sure he’d been joking. It had seemed that way at the time, at least. 

 

He blinks, but Ronan doesn’t see it. The other boy is staring out the tiny window with its view of the churchyard, stirring with that restless, violent energy that he displays when he’s about to go off on some wild bender - probably getting drunk and street racing, maybe even wrapping another car around a light pole. Adam sighs, digging his fingers into his eyes to relieve the burn of too much time spent staring at a white page. 

 

“Going back where?” he finally asks, returning to the task of conjugating the verb  rêver - to dream. There’s merely a hint of a smile on his lips as he strokes a long finger over the word before his gaze returns to Ronan’s back - tense and alert as a lion on the prowl. 

 

“Aglionby.” 

 

Adam’s not surprised, though he feels he ought to be. In fact, the only person that will be either surprised or upset about this decision is Declan, eldest son of that braggart poet, Niall Lynch. “Okay,” Adam tells him, and he’s watching carefully now, waiting to catch the scathing, wary shift of Ronan’s eyes over his shoulder. He’s not disappointed. 

 

He remembers a time when Ronan’s eyes only ever held a calculating, seething anger - the only emotion Ronan Lynch had seemed to possess. Weapons wielded with precision and alacrity, raining hellfire on anyone stupid enough to try to catch their irascible gaze. He’d seen time and again, the hungry looks directed Ronan’s way from poor, unwitting souls - like Orla and Kavinsky and the waitresses at Nino’s - who refused to see him for what he was, a dangerous thing, a rattlesnake shaking his tail in warning, ready to kill at the least provocation. 

 

Just now, Ronan’s eyes hold that same icy look, a look that could devour cities and burn them down with just a glance. He stands at the window, searing eyes honed in on Adam, and Adam sees the set of his shoulders, jagged and razor sharp, and knows that despite everything that’s happened - maybe because of it - Ronan is just as liable to cut him now as he’s ever been. _ Of all the options in the world, Ronan is the most difficult version of them all _ . He’s always known that the same way he’s always known that grass is green and the sky is blue. Ronan is no less dangerous now than he’s ever been, more so when he feels that he’s dancing around the edges of a spring-loaded trap that’s just biding its time until it can snare him. 

 

But Ronan has changed, too. He’s grown in the last year and a half, finally capable of showing a range - though not quite a full one - of anything from joy to love to agitation. In rare, unguarded, moments, he lets his barriers drop - for Adam, for Opal, on occasion for Gansey and Blue. But especially for Adam, who’s learned to read his moods like a tachometer, sensing when Ronan’s emotions are pushing him into the red zone. Fear, worry, and doubt clamber across Ronan’s face in the form of fury as he turns to set his burning eyes on Adam, who purposely remains impassive in the wake of that stare. 

 

In many ways, he’s become immune to it. It’s hard to take that anger to heart when he’s seen the way Ronan can look when Adam is kissing him, all soft and open and reverential. When their tentative fingers are exploring planes and valleys, both nervous and exhilarated, Ronan’s gaze is gentler, though no less piercing. It’s only been a few short weeks since their first kiss at the Barns and everything that had come after, and although they’ve never gotten farther than this honest, careful exploration - both boys equal parts eager and apprehensive - Adam recognizes a look of devotion when he sees one. 

 

He tries to offer that look to Ronan now, to let him know in no uncertain terms that he supports this decision. That he trusts Ronan to know what is right for his life. That he understands how suffocating Aglionby has become for Ronan. All at once the tight coil of tension snaps, a rubber band stretched so far that it gives, and Ronan sags, limp and brittle as old rubber, against the ancient window panes in the St. Agnes apartment, head dropping back to rattle the glass. 

 

Adam steps closer, uncurling Ronan’s fists and linking their fingers together. “Okay,” he says again, quieter, listening as Ronan relaxes, blowing out a long slow breath to release the remaining tautness in his chest. Adam is drawn into the circle of strong arms, Ronan moving forward to rest his forehead against Adam’s shoulder. A wet, delicate kiss is applied to Adam’s neck, and he knows that’s all the acknowledgment he’ll get. Ronan won’t tell him thanks for being understanding, and that’s perfectly fine, because Adam understands that, too. What he does get is even better - Ronan’s arms wrapped tight around him, Ronan’s body lean and hard against him, Ronan’s breath floating across his skin, Ronan’s scent in his nostrils. Adam squeezes back with just as much force as Ronan, fingers coming up to cradle his shaved head.

 

They stay that way for minutes, hours, days until Ronan finally pulls away and cups Adam’s cheeks, branding his lips with his own. “You’re alright for an asshole, Parrish,” Ronan tells him, the sharp edges of a deadly smile tugging his lips upward. 

 

“I could say the same about you, Lynch,” Adam replies, tasting that smile with no fear of being wounded by it, no shame in relishing the flavor of it - so warm and sweet, so undeniably  _ Ronan _ . For a moment, he wonders when that taste had become so goddamn familiar and comforting, wonders, too, if it’s the same for Ronan, knows in his heart that it is, then abandons thought altogether when Ronan’s tongue parts his lips. 


	4. A Moment In The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan wakes in the middle of the night and takes a bit of time to appreciate the man sleeping beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potentially the sappiest thing I've ever written, which is saying a lot because just about everything I write is sappy. 
> 
> Heavily implied smut here.

The house is dark - save a sliver of moonlight spilling through the tree branches outside his room - and quiet when Ronan wakes. Mercifully, it’s not in the usual abrupt way he’s become accustomed to of late. Instead, it’s a lazy fluttering of his eyes and stirring of his limbs as his mind readjusts to the world around him. Instantly, he’s aware of many things at once - his sore muscles and slightly sticky skin where he’d done a poor job of cleaning himself after his and Adam’s activities earlier, the warm, solid heat of Adam’s body still tucked up tight and soothing against his own, the soft, purring snore emanating from Adam’s chest. Ronan drinks it all in, from the bitterness that hangs in the back of his throat to the ghost of Adam’s touch on his most intimate places. 

 

It had been the first time they’d ever done anything like that, with each other or anyone else, carrying their kissing and touching and petting through to that finally foregone conclusion that it is no longer enough. The fire that consumes them needs a deeper connection if there’s any hope of placating it, but they’d learned, rather quickly, that it is a hopeless cause. The fire can no more be extinguished than the sun itself. Every desperate action had only served to add fuel. As Ronan watches the shallow rise and fall of Adam’s chest, he considers and comes to the euphoric realization that he is perfectly okay with that. 

 

He sits up, legs swinging over the side of the bed and rests his elbows on his knees, rubbing the grogginess away from his face. When he turns to regard Adam again, his boyfriend - his heart trips over itself - has shifted to take up more space on the tiny bed. Ronan has never thought about how small the bed is. Then again, he’s never tried to share it with anyone before, either. Adam grumbles adorably in his sleep, and Ronan lets loose a rare, uninhibited smile, unable to resist reaching out to trail a fingertip along Adam’s jaw. It’s prickly with stubble that Ronan wants to kiss, but his desires are at war with one another. Adam has to work in the morning - really it’s a damned miracle he’d elected to stay at the Barns at all - and needs his sleep. 

 

Ronan has never, and will never, ask Adam to stop. He understands that burning need to be his own man. Adam knows that Ronan could offer him the world on a silver platter, but Ronan suspects that Adam’s love and respect for him spring from the assurance that he won’t. Ronan isn’t Gansey. He doesn’t feel the need to fix everything with money. Even as he has the thought, he knows it’s unfair. Gansey’s actions stem from nothing more than naive kindness. Adam has always said that Gansey is stupid about money, and Ronan supposes that’s true. In Ronan’s observation, they’d all been stupid about money at some point, Adam included, but he’s come to view it as a tool, a resource. He’s never seen it as a means to gain approval. 

 

Adam stirs, eyes drifting open, and Ronan watches, hawklike and almost hungry, as a delectable smile slowly spreads across his face. “Hey,” Adam murmurs, and Ronan is sure that he’d see a blush on Adam’s cheeks if the room were more illuminated. 

 

“Hey.” Ronan’s voice is rough with sleep and affection. 

 

Ronan’s eyes follow as Adam turns and stretches, the long lines of his body breathtaking in the moonlight. He feels the stirrings of returning desire but ignores it in favor of simply enjoying the view in front of him. Long before last night, long before that risky, first kiss in this very room and the thousands that have followed in its wake, Ronan had been in awe of Adam Parrish - his quaint politeness, his elegant beauty, his inner strength. Months before, he’d have had to steal glimpses of the quiet boy, and then he’d never been rewarded like this. It was rare for Ronan to even catch him with his shirt off as he worked through the sweltering heat of summer. This sight, Adam naked and stretched out on his bed like a sleeping lion, shimmery and sultry in the moonglow, feels like the greatest gift he’s ever been given.

 

He can no longer resist touching Adam. Ronan traces the line of his jaw again, down over the apple in his throat, the divot beneath, through the smattering of pale hair on his chest. The light from the heavens runs down Ronan’s arm and drips off the end of his finger highlighting his path and making Adam squirm as though it burns. Ronan lets his hand rest on Adam’s stomach, fingers splayed against the soft skin just above his belly button. His breath is heavy and ragged as he draws in enough oxygen to sustain himself. 

 

Ronan has dreamt up brothers and pets and cars and whole other worlds. As a child, his father had taken him to Ireland where everything appears to be crafted from emeralds. He’s seen sunsets that could melt even his frigid heart and enjoyed views from mountain peaks that were genuinely breathtaking. He’d stood in the ocean while the sun’s burgeoning rays bounced off the glimmering surface, turning the entire earth pink and orange and purple and thought _ this is magnificent _ . 

 

But in the whole of his life, he’s never seen anything more splendid than this. 

 

Adam smiles a Cheshire smile as though he can read Ronan’s thoughts and is thinking to himself  _ what a sap _ ! In an act of self-defense, Ronan swoops down and lays claim to that smile. He’d meant to get up. He’d meant not to wake Adam, but as Adam’s fingers carve a path down Ronan’s side, as his kisses urge Ronan closer, he can’t come up with a single, compelling reason not to stay. 

  
  



	5. Approval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam and Ronan are enjoying the first warm day of spring when Adam runs into his father for the first time since the trial. 
> 
> **
> 
> TW: Mentions of child abuse and dealing with themes of lingering emotional and psychological trauma surrounding that abuse
> 
> **
> 
> Implied sexual content

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, at the end of TRK, Adam goes to visit his parents after graduation. Robert mentions Adam driving his "boyfriend's beamer," and I just sort of wondered how Robert came to have knowledge of Adam's relationship with Ronan. My curiosity led to this little fic here. I hope you enjoy it!

Christmas came and went. Winter melted into a crisp, lush spring. Adam took in the scent of blossoms sprinkled about the trees and rolling, green hills of the Barns and thought that in all his eighteen years he’d never witnessed a spring so beautiful, so refreshing. In Adam’s world, only mud sprouted from the springtime showers that brought floral abundance to the rest of the world. The yard he’d grown up in had managed to grow nothing more than a patchy smattering of grass, resembling the few piteous attempts Gansey had made at beard growing, and a handful of ambitious daffodils at the edge of the driveway. At the Barns, the field just behind the house was an emerald carpet studded with unlikely sapphire blooms, the air perfumed by their sickly-sweet fragrance. The low buzz of honey bees, as they flitted from one flower to the next, created the baseline for a symphony of birdsong and chittering animals. 

 

A few feet from the house, Opal lay in the swaying grass, eating the flowers that littered the ground as far as the eye could see. Ronan stalked around by one of the nearby barns, tinkering with something that Adam couldn’t see. The entire scene was at once mystical and utterly ordinary, and Adam thrilled with the possibilities of the day. It was still early, before lunch, and they had yet to decide how they were going to spend this wealth of sunshine and fresh air. It was another thrill, thinking of a whole day with no working and beautiful weather to enjoy. A day with Ronan no less. 

 

“Hey, Lynch,” he called, strolling lazily, hands stuffed into his pockets, over to where Ronan was dragging boards and nails and spools of wire out of the barn. Fence building? Adam’s plan was definitely the better one. “What do you say to a drive into town and gelato for lunch? My treat.” 

 

Ronan didn’t even look up. “Dessert for lunch? Scandalous! What would your doctor say, Parrish?” 

 

“He’d probably tell me life’s short and to enjoy myself while I could.” 

 

Ronan snorted, then glared at all the equipment he’d just dragged from the barn. “You could’ve fucking said something ten minutes ago,” he groused. 

 

“I didn’t know what I wanted ten minutes ago.” Adam grinned, slow and indolent, while Ronan rolled his eyes. There was a spark in those blue eyes though, one that said he wasn’t the least put out by this change of plans, one that promised things more scandalous than ice cream for lunch. 

 

After returning the fence material to the barn, they rode in the charcoal-gray BMW that had belonged to Niall Lynch and now belonged to his middle son, with the windows rolled down and Ronan’s shitty music blaring. Adam and Ronan both hung their arms out of the car letting them catch the wind as it raced past. Adam felt happier and more carefree than he had in months. The school year would be winding down soon, spring would give way to hot, lazy summer days full of promise. He’d already found an old rundown backhoe in one of the barns and proposed repairing it so he could dig them a swimming hole. Ronan had been rather enthusiastic about the idea of skinny dipping even if he wasn’t a fan of the sun. The image of Ronan, naked and wet, did complicated things to Adam’s insides. 

 

They got their gelato in waffle cones to go and strolled, hand-in-hand, around the Henrietta town square. No one was in a rush. All around them, townsfolk basked in the first warm, sunshiny day of the year, soaking up the sun’s rays, inhaling great lungfuls of cleansing air. The sound of distant lawnmowers hummed all around them, the fresh, green scent of newly mown grass mingling with the sweetness of the dogwood trees in front of the Methodist church. 

 

“This was a good idea,” Ronan murmured casually. 

 

Adam had half expected him to say something sarcastic or crass, but Ronan was always surprising him. He let himself be distracted by the way the other boy’s lips moved when he brought his ice-cream cone to his mouth, couldn’t help but think of other things that had touched those lips recently. He shivered and forced himself to look away, feeling Ronan’s smirking eyes bore into him. This time, as expected, Ronan stepped closer and whispered something filthy in his good ear, making Adam blush and clear his throat and lap at his ice cream in order to avoid making eye contact with Ronan. 

 

“What’s the matter, Parrish? Cat got your tongue?” Ronan’s voice was downright sinful now, like a purr coated in silk, and Adam was having difficulty coming up with a pithy reply. Flustered with the thoughts in his head and his brain’s refusal to make words, he simply tightened his grip on Ronan’s hand and continued to wander down the street, innocently licking his ice cream, fully aware of Ronan’s ever-sharp eyes honed on the delicate flick of his tongue. It was hard not to feel smug about Ronan’s attention to that particular detail. 

 

“Adam.” The voice that called his name, harsh gravel against his good ear, drew his steps to a sudden stop and cut off all the pleasant fantasies that had begun to take root in his mind. It was the voice of his own nightmare - the one he’d lived with for seventeen miserable years. 

 

During the past few months, he’d nearly forgotten what it had felt like to live in constant fear. The burn of adrenaline that flared at the mere mention of Robert Parrish’s name had become nothing more than a fuzzy memory that could have belonged to someone else, like maybe he’d read it in a book somewhere and could no longer determine if it was a true memory or merely a vague idea planted in his subconscious. Since he’d moved out of his parents’ doublewide, Adam had begun to make a life for himself - one that involved hard work and exhaustion, endless hours of study and research. One that was full of magical connections to spiritual places and friendships that were bound up in the eternal. One that was full of Ronan Lynch and the beauty of an angry boy with a soft heart who would move mountains for Adam Parrish, who would dream wonderous things for Adam Parrish, if he’d let him, who would burn cities for Adam Parrish. 

 

A boy who would  _ fight _ for Adam Parrish, if he had to.

 

But in the face of his terror, he forgot all that. All at once, that old world of heartache, loneliness, and misery came rushing right back into Adam’s body like a river bursting through a dam. It swept away all the peace and happiness he’d found, sucked it right out and drown it like it had never existed before. As if the cosmos knew that Adam had been playing pretend all this time, and this was the fate he’d been destined to from the start. That life where time was a ticking bomb, and setting Robert Parrish off was an inevitability, not simply a risk. Adam felt the echo of a fist smashing into his cheek, leaving him reeling and wondering why. Why him? What had he done to deserve it? He heard the whispers that he’d lived with his entire life - stupid, lazy, unwanted, unloved, a disappointment. Even now, he knew the words didn’t hold sway over him anymore, but that didn’t make them any less true in his father’s eyes - black, beady things full of hate and violence. 

 

It struck Adam as a bit odd that before he’d really gotten to know Ronan - when he’d still assumed that the boy was built from nothing but rage and brutality, not realizing that those things were merely the coat of paint that hid his true nature and covered the chinks in his armor wrought by pain and suffering - he would have used the same descriptor for the broody boy. Now he knew differently. Now he knew so many things differently. 

 

He knew, marrow-deep, that he was  _ not _ destined to live a loveless life of pain. He knew that Ronan was _ not _ just a ferocious sack of turbulence and angst. He knew that Robert Parrish no longer controlled him, but it was so easy to forget. Time was circular, Maura Sargent liked to say, and as Adam stared into the eyes of his lifelong tormentor, he had that sense of deja vu that told him he’d been here before. He’d made this same mistake - whatever it happened to be (he had no idea) - before. The calm veneer of Robert Parrish’s face did little to hide the snarl of fury that stewed in his bones. Adam felt instinctively that he’d fucked up somehow, though he hadn’t seen either of his parents in months - not since the trial. Robert hadn’t spent any time in jail for his crimes, despite Ronan’s and Gansey’s testimony, but he’d been convicted, and that had been victory enough for Adam. Someone besides his friends knew and believed him. But now there was a black mark on Robert Parrish’s record that mirrored the black marks the man used to leave on Adam’s cheeks. His rage was a very real, very tangible thing. 

 

Adam resisted the urge to flinch from it, to brace for the inevitable blow that would likely send him sprawling across the sidewalk, chewing up his elbows with the burn of the pavement. While Robert Parrish no longer held sway over his life, he’d been born with his best weapons - his fists and his words. 

 

Then again, so had Ronan Lynch. 

 

Beside Adam, Ronan stepped forward, ice cream thrown to the ground like a gauntlet challenge, daring Robert to so much as breathe on Adam. He could feel the anger vibrating around Ronan, every bit as palpable as that of Robert Parrish. The two men stared each other down, glowering, dark and thunderous. Adam knew that Ronan wasn’t above taking a swing at his father without any further provocation than the man’s presence on the face of the earth. He also knew that his father was spiteful and vindictive enough to press charges, and Adam would not let Ronan go to jail for him. No matter what. 

 

“Ronan,” he said quietly. The soft reverence of the word caught his boyfriend’s attention in a way that little else could when the urge to lash out was already coursing through his veins like gasoline. 

 

Ronan growled, baring his teeth at Robert Parrish, but said nothing. Taking a step back, he continued to loom ominously at Adam’s side. He stared at Robert, never uttering a single word. Ronan was good at staring. He’d been accused of tearing people apart from the inside out with his stare. Robert stood against it longer than most, but even he couldn’t withstand the onslaught. Judging by the look on Robert Parrish’s face, he was currently being flayed alive by Ronan’s vicious eyes, his war smile. 

 

Robert eventually looked away, his scathing gaze lacerating Adam once more. In his periphery, Adam saw Ronan’s lips twist into the cruelest of all his smiles. His victory smile.

 

“Nice pet you’ve got yourself there, Adam. What breed is he, pitbull?”

 

“Cobra,” Adam answered without hesitation. Ronan laughed, low and dark and savage, while Adam made a show of ensuring that their hands were still joined, fingers still linked, leaving no room for anyone to doubt what the pair of them meant to each other. 

 

Robert Parrish took notice, as Adam had intended - he wasn’t ever going to hide who he was from anyone, least of all his father. His father’s shoulders stiffened as a look of distaste flitted across his face, and Adam gave a careless shrug in response. Wordlessly, they’d both made their feelings known. Robert shook his head and turned to go, casting one last withering glance back at the couple before trudging down the street away from them. 

 

“Piece of  _ shit _ ,” Ronan muttered fiercely under his breath. 

 

Squeezing Adam’s hand tighter, Ronan yanked him in the opposite direction of the way they’d just been going. He maneuvered them into the alleyway behind the drug store that boasted the best tuna fish sandwiches in town, even though there were no other tuna fish sandwiches in town to compare them to, and pulled Adam roughly into his arms. Adam sank into it as his body began to tremble with the adrenaline let down. 

 

Ronan didn’t say a word, didn’t ask Adam to talk about his feelings, didn’t expect him to cry or rage or display any particular emotion. He simply held him, so achingly similar to the way Adam had comforted Ronan after his mother had died, and Adam let him, needing the anchor of Ronan’s strength, the faint scent of boxwood and hickory smoke that clung to Ronan now that he was a full-time resident of the Barns again, to keep him from floating away. 

 

They stood there for some time, hidden in the alley’s seclusion, away from gawkers and curious onlookers. Just two boys locked in an embrace, one giving comfort, the other soaking it in like the day’s warm rays of sun. Slowly the terror leached out of Adam’s body, absorbed by the strength of Ronan’s arms. He tipped his head up and pressed a kiss to Ronan’s jaw. “Thank you,” he murmured. 

 

“I can still go back and kill the bastard if you want,” Ronan snarled. 

 

Adam laughed. “Nah, I’m good.” 

 

“Sorry about the gelato. Want to get a tuna sandwich instead?” Ronan nodded his head toward the drug store. 

 

“That actually sounds nauseating at the moment,” Adam admitted, wrinkling his nose. 

 

Ronan made a face and nodded, conceding the point. “Want to drive the BMW? Always makes me feel better.” 

 

“That,” Adam paused to consider briefly. “That actually does sound like a good idea.” 

 

By the time the sun was sinking on the horizon, and Adam was sinking into Ronan’s bed all boneless and thoroughly satisfied, the earlier encounter with his father had become one of those hazy, dreamlike memories that settled like cobwebs in the recesses of his mind. He was no longer sure if he’d seen and talked to Robert Parrish that afternoon or only imagined it, and quite honestly, he didn’t give a shit. This was the life he wanted - wrapped in Ronan Lynch’s strong arms, draped over Ronan Lynch’s lean body, being kissed by Ronan Lynch’s supple mouth. 

 

Once, Adam had believed with all his heart that he’d leave Henrietta, Virginia one day and never return, but now he knew that was no longer true. He’d go get his education, he’d become his own self-made man, and he’d come back here to the Barns, to Ronan, and they’d face the world together. Maybe one day his father would forgive him for wanting a life out from under his iron fist. Maybe one day that would mean something to Adam. But as he lay in the dark next to Ronan, he found that Robert Parrish’s forgiveness no longer meant anything to him. His approval had stopped meaning anything long ago. All he knew was that he was done cowering from the people who should have loved him but didn’t, and he was ready to move forward with the ones who shouldn’t love him but did. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> This work is unbetaed, but has been looked over by my dear friend to ensure that I was true to the characters (thank you, my love!) He is also responsible for me posting this work, because I wouldn't have without his encouragement! 
> 
> I've tried to keep to canon as much as possible with these works, though everything is open to a bit of interpretation. There will also be no explicit sexual content throughout, though it will be implied later on. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr, though I post very little TRC stuff, but you're welcome to drop by and say hi anyway! [ellebeedarling](http://ellebeedarling.tumblr.com)
> 
> Much love,  
> Elle


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